Lying on his back inside a cramped capsule on top of a missile with the destructive power of 3.5 million tons of TNT, Alan Shepard was growing impatient. Scheduled to launch on the Freedom 7 mission in 1961, he was set to become only the second American to go into space. But there was an issue: one of the flight techs didn’t like the pressure of the fuel lines and stopped the countdown. Strapped on top of 37,405 pounds of explosives, he uttered the immortal line, “Why don’t you fix your little problem and light this candle.”

It was something out of Hollywood: a cool, snappy one-liner filled with bluster, but in Shepard’s case, it wasn’t hot air.

As the thousands of pounds of propellant ignited below him, buffeted by massive forces as the missile freed itself from earthly confines, his heart rate remained as low as it would have been if he was bored and making small talk at a cocktail party.

Taylor Clark wonders how he was so calm. Under massive and unimaginable physical stresses, the man was cooler than a liquid nitrogen cucumber. Surely there was something to his unflappable demeanor that set him apart, because in addition to intensive training and military experience. Shepard definitely had The Right Stuff. Clark explores fear, poise, and performance under pressure in Nerve, a literary tour of “serenity under stress and the brave new science of fear and cool.”

Clark draws on stories of unflappability from all over, from such diverse sources as a nuclear submarine officer who saved the world during the Cuban missile crisis, an emergency room surgeon at a major trauma center, and Laurence Olivier’s stage fright.

The author admits early on that he himself is a basket stew of neuroses, and that he endured a bit of good-natured ribbing when his friends and colleagues found out that he was writing a book about fear and cool, but that just makes the journey more interesting. Instead of an exercise in academic storytelling, Clark uses lessons from the different arenas he explores to build a picture of grace under stress, what it is, what it involves, and how to get it.

The most important thing that emerges is that if you don’t think about what can go wrong, or about what you shouldn’t do (“don’t lose track of the ball, don’t fumble the catch, don’t trip”), and instead focus on what you can do and what you have direct control over (“keep your eye on the ball, keep your hands steady, take it one step at a time”), it becomes possible to harness the power of fear productively.

It’s a bit of a confusing dichotomy, though. Aren’t fear and courage opposites? Maybe in theory, but the physical symptoms are the same. It’s no coincidence that the instinctive biological response to stress has been dubbed the “fight or flight response” ( or being the operative word). In a strict sense, nerve has connotations of both fear (bundle of nerves) and courage (to get up the nerve), and the title is aptly named with this in mind.

Nerve is a funny, entertaining, illuminating, and ultimately hopeful ride. Through stories of stress and the science of strength, Clark shows us that if we approach it in the right way, there really is nothing to fear from fear itself.

Warren Singh is a bookworm and wiseacre who sometimes goes undercover as a writer. He also occasionally pretends to be studying chemical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass. Sinecures, paeans, and disproportionately massive bribes may be proffered at probablystillsomewhatincorrect.wordpress.com

byThomas Anania

You may call him an arrogant asshat, a loudmouth, or an obnoxious waste of human consciousness. He and his flock regard him as an iconoclast, a god, the unrivaled musical talent of this generation. I argue that Kanye West is a true advertising genius, a David Ogilvy of our times.

After his most recent stunt at this year’s Grammy Awards, Kanye West is basking under the warm media spotlight again. During the presentation of the Album of the Year award for Beck’s Morning Phases, Kanye charged the stage and almost got his hands on a microphone before showing some restraint, shrugging, and returning to his seat. Many thought we were going to be blessed with another VMA 2009 rant, during which he told Taylor Swift that she was not worthy of the award and that Beyoncé should have won. Many believed the whole act was a prank. Surely Kanye was lampooning himself?

No.

“I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us,” he said. “We ain’t gonna play with them no more.” It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the same injustice from six years ago necessitated the same response.

Beck answered questions from the press with grace, agreeing that yes, Beyoncé should have won for the sake of just being Beyoncé. As for Kanye himself, even a disrespected Beck couldn’t find it in his heart to curse Kanye. “I still love [West] and think he’s a genius. I aspire to do what he does.”

Explaining his actions later in an interview with Ryan Seacrest, Kanye said, “So the voices in my head told me go and then I just walked up like halfway up the stage.” The voices were likely a symphony of perfectly harmonized auto-tuned muses.

With a head as big as Kanye’s and a discography to match, it’s hard not to appreciate his genius. He’s skilled in so many media, including poetry, producing, scowling, and fashion design. He even has a knack for discovering new talent (you’re welcome, Sir Paul McCartney). But the one thing that Kanye excels at above all else is marketing, specifically marketing Kanye. As the old adage goes, “Any publicity is good publicity.” Kanye’s flamboyant manipulation of entertainment journalism is where his true genius shines through. Kanye knows that acting prim and proper at an awards show is boring. Whereas crashing Beck’s speech got the press so hot and bothered that they had to get the post-show interview.

Though most of the coverage has been overwhelmingly negative, the backlash from this stunt is already subsiding. His new track, FourFiveSeconds, is a hit. Whether this most recent success is validation of his Grammy stunt and attention-whoring behavior is debatable. What we do know is that Kanye loves media attention, knows how to get it, and is currently rolling in it.

by Audrey Dolan

Red Sox Rosary/www.jmjblessedbeads.com

I have two religions: Christianity and sports.

I’m not equating God and Tom Brady (though I fear I have made the comparison in the heat of the moment). I guess you could say that I’m a person of faith with a borderline unhealthy dedication to Boston sports teams. Whether my parents intentionally did it or not, spirituality and the love of sports have been deeply ingrained into me.

My first visit to Fenway Park was when I was eight years old, on the city’s famous Marathon Monday. We had the day off of school, and my parents felt it was a perfect time for my first baseball game.

Boston Red Sox vs Toronto Blue Jays, 11am start. Mid-April, winter winds still lingering, the whole family in Red Sox sweatshirts. The concourse was a sea of people and I was engulfed in foreign smells. Running up the ramp and stepping into the stadium’s afternoon light was a divine feeling. I had never seen anything so large and grand in my life. We sat six rows back from the dugout and I watched as the players walked by, their pristine white uniforms progressively getting dirtier throughout the game. There was pomp and circumstance, laughing, cheering, and singing. I was a spectator, not only of the game but the crowd. As we exited on Yawkey Way, I looked back and waved goodbye. It was the first of countless visits.

My introduction to “the Nation,” as Red Sox fans refer to themselves, came before the dawn of a new era. I watched the Red Sox go from mediocre, to good, to great. The night we won the 2004 World Series, breaking the 86-year losing streak, I saw my mother cry. Not an overwhelming sobbing, but a silent, gentle cry.

When you walk into a place of worship, there is a sense of tranquility and relief. You have come to be in the presence of something holy, as well as to be drawn into the community of your fellow believers. I get that feeling when I step into Fenway Park. I know I am about to see something amazing and unique. There will never be a game identical to this one. I take my seat, breathe in the air, admittedly a mixture of anticipation, outfield grass, and beer, and my soul feels at peace. I am at church and am ready to see the beautiful splendor of God.

There are two important aspects of religion, the individual relationship you have with your deity, and the community that surrounds you in your practice. In understanding and following sports, there is an individual relationship you create. It can be something you do alone, on your own time. And when you venture out to bars and stadiums, you become engulfed in the community of your fellow believes. Together you cultivate this community and this bond. A mutual love brings you all together.

Being a part of a sports community can be just as meaningful and spiritual as going to church. It gives you something to believe in, something to lean on, something to look forward to. There is a support system. It is giving yourself wholeheartedly to something that you have no control over. Both religion and avid sports fandom require a lot of blind faith.

My position may seem extreme to those who have never had a soul-moving experience at a sporting event. To equate a deep dedication to a higher power with a baseball game doesn’t make sense or even seem right. And at face value they do not appear to be at all in the same realm. But I am not alone in this feeling. Both congregations teach faith and unconditional belief. If you deeply believe, you do not stray when things get tough. Win or lose, up or down, your belief and dedication is continual. In being faithful, you have the ability to look beyond the hard times, beyond the bumps in the road, the scorecard and the stats. You achieve understanding of the way the world works. The community, the passion, and the purpose it gives you remain long after any game or service ends.

At a baseball game, amid all the screaming, nail biting, and heart palpitations, there are moments when there is stillness in the crowd. The air hangs heavy with anxiety and anticipation as we collectively wait for the make-or-break moment. In that silence, I experience something holy and pure. Everyone should have this. Everyone should feel the undying, deeply rooted love that comes from putting your whole self into something. Both the stadium and the sanctuary are holy ground.

Audrey Dolan is a sophomore at Clark University, splitting her time between the Psychology and English departments. Her not so secret ambition is to pursue a career as a creative writer.

by Emma R. Collins

the author at the cliffs of moher/photo by andrew andraka

A girl stands in the security line at Boston Logan International Airport, laden with bags and hopes and fears. She has said goodbye to her family, her friends, her nervous black mutt with the wide brown eyes and half-flopped ears. Nine months, an entire school year, is a long time to be away.

But she shouldn’t worry. Soon she’ll stand where giants once stood, the blue Atlantic foaming and dashing itself against an ancient causeway built of myth and legend. She’ll hear the western winds whipping along the boundless cliffs of Moher. She will feel the rains fall in Wicklow that soften her hair. She will know that the winking stars in Bray are the stars she has always known.

She will find herself lost in the Dublin streets that bubble with a thousand tongues and she will wonder at the familiar tucked against the new. She will spot the golden arches of a McDonald’s, but duck into a fish and chip shop that fries up the morning catch.

She will sit with scholars at Trinity College and walk across the ancient blue and grey and black cobblestones of Front Square. She will wander the forest paths of Glendalough softened with needles and the scent of still waters and sense the history that lies in the quiet shadows.

Soon she will forget her fears. She stretches to peek out the small airplane window and smiles seeing the new land below, verdant in the warm Irish sun.

Emma R. Collins of Ashby, Massachusetts, studies English and Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and hopes to become a literary editor. She is currently studying at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

by Sasha Kohan

At 25 years old, Aly Spaltro is no stranger to the small ironies and binaries of modern life. As her moniker, Lady Lamb, suggests, there’s a powerful sense of grace in her music and persona, alloyed with the sweetness of a teenage girl who shyly started teaching herself to play guitar and experiment with making music in the after-hours of her part-time job at a video rental store. Since these early undercover days, Spaltro has come a long way. “I ain’t no warrior or king,” she roars in the final chorus of “Vena Cava,” the opening number on her second studio album After (Mom+Pop Music). Knowing that anyone who has heard her work would beg to differ, she is quick to qualify, adding, “But how I am one when I sing.”

aly spaltro is lady lamb

I was first introduced to Lady Lamb The Beekeeper (a name that came to her in a dream, and which has since been shortened) as a senior in high school, when she was hardly known beyond the corners of our shared state, Maine. Her first studio album, Ripely Pine (Ba Da Bing! Records) came out shortly after I started college and experienced a rapid procession of feelings from first-breakup devastation to homesickness to newly-found self-reliance and spirit. Spaltro recently told Nylon magazine that she can now see the songs on Ripely Pine as “very dramatic” and “kind of all over the place emotionally,” but at the time I felt that lines like “You make me into an egg without yolk” and “I still need your teeth round my organs” were written specifically for me. Ripely Pine was almost all I could stand listening to that year. With an offhand blend of unusually long and uniquely structured songs, Spaltro’s first album covers a range of adolescent attitudes, from the intimacy, betrayal, and complexity of “young love” (I really hate this phrase, but what else do you say when someone’s young and in love?) to a pure and quiet affection for her family.

Almost all Ripely Pine’s songs can be seen this way: is it about love, or family? Heartbreak or home? Even in these simplistic terms (or perhaps, especially), it’s easy to see why the album would speak so much to a kind of dramatic, very emotionally-all-over-the place 19-year-old; as the composer and wordsmith of such lyrically beautiful and universal expressions, hopefully Spaltro isn’t embarrassed by that.

With this in mind, After seems an appropriate title for the follow-up. Listeners expecting a development, a grown-up looking back at a distance to her reckless teenage years, might very well feel satisfied with After. With a sleeker stage name, succinct song titles, and shorter song lengths, Spaltro shows some real adult-like temperance and maturity (like her debut, After has only three songs that even come close to acceptable radio-standard length, but lacks the added boldness from Ripely Pine’s five songs stretching over the five-minute mark). The twelve-track album is more polished in both mixing and vocal quality, with nothing that comes near to the raw voice cracks in “Regarding Ascending the Stairs” or the sung-screamed lyrics of “Crane Your Neck.” Only two songs explicitly deal with romantic relationships as Ripely Pine did, with the rest either crossing into home and family territory or leading listeners somewhere else entirely.

The recurring words and images in the lyrics are telling: apples, ghosts, and airplanes; birds, blood, and Jesus. Indeed, her infatuation with the vocabulary of eating, death, and animals is reminiscent of the major motifs in the literary nonsense genre of Alice in Wonderland creator Lewis Carroll and adapted by the likes of Emily Dickinson, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. Oranges and nectarines (not to mention strawberry cake) appear, as does chewing, gnawing, and most prominently, starving. Lines like “I could be cracked open like a cartoon watermelon” demonstrate Spaltro’s stomach for potentially gruesome imagery combined with the comical, almost like Wallace Stevens. As with Stevens, playing with the notion of death is clearly important to Spaltro as well, as images of ghosts, skulls, and graves intermingle with her details of ordinary life and often descend through nonsense surrealism into absurdity. “You will become your most favorite color” is her idea of death (from After’s poignant “Sunday Shoes”), while disembodied descriptions like “You with the watercolor eyes, you who bares all your teeth in every smile” are distinctly whimsical and evocative of Carroll’s Cheshire Cat.

And although cats have yet to appear in one of Spaltro’s songs, she does show a Carrollian affinity for creature comparisons, incorporating such “rabid beasts” and “handsome animals” as mice, wolves, dinosaurs, and alligators into her often surreal imagery and metaphors. Deer, ants, whales, and lions appear, but Spaltro’s true affection is for birds–crows, vultures, sparrows, and now an eagle with a fish in its beak. Often, hand in hand with these animal allusions are bodily references to limbs, organs, and bones. Spaltro’s attention to details of the body makes each song feel like a dissection as she severs eyes from their sockets, ribs from their cages, spines and clavicles from their exquisite bones structures. Even after severing the parts she needs, though, the body is often further disfigured by incorporating the language of animals into its description; just as Ripely Pine’s opener “Hair to the Ferris Wheel” has such lines as “It’s a zoo in your room when you part your lips” and “Let’s crawl all over one another like crows on a carcass,” the fairly existential “Spat Out Spit” furthers and exemplifies the thematic association between the human body and an animal one. “Animal hearts, pumping that animal, animal blood,” Spaltro sings lightly and low, leading into the main question of the refrain: “Was I born wild? Have I been asleep this whole damn time, dreaming up a life? Will I awake to find that I’m deep in the woods and I’m snarling on all fours?” This chorus actually brings up other themes in the Lady Lamb catalogue, from the viewing of humans as savage animals to the recurring ideas of infancy, sleeping, and dreaming. Newborns appear almost as often as apples, and the repetition of “asleep” and “awoke” throughout both albums reinforces her uncanny ability to make even unremarkable details of life feel like a dream.

More so than these perennial images, though, it is clear that what has remained consistently important across Lady Lamb’s discography thus far–and is even more prominent in the new album–is her love for home and her family. The language of travel weaves throughout her songs, but when it’s about love, the plane crashes, the ship wrecks. When the song leans towards home, nostalgia takes over and we are painted a golden map of Spaltro’s memories, spanning from her New England roots in Maine and New York to Arizona and Arkansas. Her parents, sister, and brother are all mentioned, and always in tender solo songs featuring only Spaltro and her guitar. “Ten” comes near the end of After, an ode to home ripe with affection for her sister, best friend, and mother. The song was the closer to Lady Lamb’s recent album release shows in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine, and it left the audiences the thought that “there’s a sweetness in us that lives long past the dust on our eyes, once our eyes finally close.” After all is said and done, after the droughts, gore, crashes, slaughter, swords, and pistols, she knows where she ends up, and she knows where she comes from.

SashaKohan is a student at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, pursuing a degree in English and Screen Studies. For more of her work, see www.sashakohan.com.

byJeremy Levine

The Madding Crowd/550 Music

Nobody who had a VH1 subscription in the early 2000s was unaware of “Absolutely (Story of a Girl),” the one-and-only hit by Nine Days, a Long Island-based pop/rock group. To this day, if you play the track in a room full of twenty-somethings, every single person will know every single word. Still, most of those twenty-somethings won’t remember the band’s name, and even fewer will recognize The Madding Crowd, the album the song came from.

Which is a shame, because The Madding Crowd is 00s pop/rock in the best possible way, a more heartfelt Vertical Horizon, a more nuanced Blink-182, a less pissed-off Green Day. The Madding Crowd is not chock-full of three-minute radio bait; some of the arrangements are ambitious for a scene dominated by likes of Third Eye Blind and Blink-182.

The first five tracks are straight enough, including the aforementioned “Absolutely,” with acoustic guitars and synthesizers laying percussive backgrounds for the verses, with a wash of distorted guitars and drums for the chorus. Cue a guitar solo before the last verse, and you’re good to go. To be fully honest, any of the first four tracks could have been as popular as “Absolutely.”

But then things get weird. “Sometimes,” the fifth track, is nearly five minutes long, with an extended and repeated chorus and a long, spacey outro.

With “Bob Dylan,” the sixth track, it becomes evident that the group is trying to do something different. Beginning with the sound of a needle scratching a record coupled with a complicated drum opening and the sound of a DJ scratching a presumably different) record, the tribute to Dylan begins with a muffled first verse, then a very long chorus that sounds like it was lifted right out of the first half of the record.

The bridge opens with a blast on a harmonica and then a sample of Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” The bridge is similar to the chorus, but then the first line of the first verse comes in, then a guitar lick, a lot of feedback, drums playing straight eighth notes, another version of the bridge, then back to the regular chorus, then back to Bob Dylan singing. It might be one of the weirdest minutes of 00s pop, but it works. The energy created by these different parts in succession is hugely powerful. Nine Days throws typical form out the window and spends the back half of the track just trying things, and it not only creates a completely uniform piece, but you don’t even notice how strange it is until you really listen.

The following track, “257 Weeks,” is propelled by a gooey piano riff and a gritty vocal performance. Then you have “Bitter,” probably the most ambitious track on the album, a slow-burning ballad that begins with an electric guitar/vocals pairing reminiscent of Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” but it veers away as bass and drums slide in unobtrusively for the second verse. Strings come in after the first chorus, then piano, and by the time we’re at the bridge, we’re firing on all cylinders. As the pop/rock ballad genre necessitates a slow bridge, “Bitter” obliges, only to be led back into the heavy chorus by, of all instruments, the vocals. Brian Desveaux masterfully transitions from falsetto to the gritty vocal style that marks the final chorus. Then, with an anomalous two-minute instrumental outro, most of which is led by the aforementioned strings (which are usually underused in this genre), the track comes to an end.

Then there’s the antithetical “Back To Me,” which opens with those same harsh vocals over the now-familiar distorted guitar, and the significantly more majestically mellow “Crazy,” whose slow tempo is somewhat complicated by an overly-busy rhythm section in the chorus. John Hampson, the smoother of the group’s two singers, serves as a cleansing presence between “Back To Me” and the disaster that follows.

It is on the penultimate track, “Revolve,” that Nine Days seems most susceptible to the scene: choruses must be big, they must be noisy, they must have extra instruments. The Madding Crowd’s masterclass on instrumentation is perhaps enhanced by this overly-busy track, reminding us of where so many bands of this era ended up going in every case. “Revolve” is definitely the record’s biggest clunker, a predictor of Fall Out Boy, essentially a boring punk imitation that eleven-year-olds definitely loved.

Luckily, “Revolve” does not lay The Madding Crowd to rest, as we are left with “Wanna Be,” a quieter, Desveaux-led track that doesn’t build up at all, but barely stays above a lullaby for its six-minute run-time. It’s a nearly-perfect final track, not necessarily trying to impress us with an arrangement like “Bob Dylan” or “Bitter,” but simply bringing the album to a satisfying conclusion.

Unfortunately, The Madding Crowd never got noticed. It was certified gold within six months of its release, but never became a staple. It’s a symptom of the genre; once the group got shoehorned into “Absolutely,” it fell into music video hit territory, not band-to-become-invested-in territory. Albums were not (and are still not) the dominant commercial format, but still provide us with ambitious art. The well-understood disconnect between artistic merit and commercial success is clearly at work here: The Madding Crowd’s front half is radio bait and the second half, the half for people with slightly longer attention spans, is largely free of attempts at hits, favoring more complicated writing. The disregard for the album format is then partially what allowed it to thrive. The Madding Crowd went gold largely on the strength of “Absolutely,” letting the band let loose on the deep cuts. It’s a shame that very few people noticed, but maybe that’s the way it was meant to be.

Jeremy Levine is a senior at Clark University and Editor-in-Chief of the student newspaper The Scarlet. He also works at the Clark Writing Center and Admissions Office and is delighted to have interned for The Worcester Journal this semester.

by Eva Maldonado

I do not shudder to think of the legion that may have been conceived in your unisex bathrooms, nor of the heart-wrenching breakups that occurred over a plate of hash browns and eggs, nor of the lonely forgettable dinners consumed at the bar by equally lonely truck drivers.

For if you are anything, Waffle House, you are real.

Contrary to movies and sappy novels, people do in fact fail you in the wee hours of the night when you need them the most. Yet never have your greasy door handles been locked, never has the exhausted waitress ignored the request for “just one menu, please.”

Most restaurants are built upon pretenses, niceties, conventions of society. Close your menu when you’re ready to order. Napkins on your lap. Fifteen percent tip. Waffle House is but a satire of these prisons. You are here for food, not for the slimy floors and flickering fluorescent lights and the sad, dull eyes of the barely-eighteen girl in the blue shirt and black apron. And reasonable food is what you will get, at a reasonable price, in a reasonable time.

When the 3 a.m. highway is lit only by the headlights of other soulless, sleep-driven passengers, when you wake up too early and remember that you are the only one that can Krazy-Glue your broken pieces together again, when you’re bored on a Friday night with the only people that have ever made you feel whole—turn not to flashing neon lights, but to those eleven trustworthy tiles of gold.

Eva Maldonado studies journalism and media/screen studies at Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts. She is pursuing a career in creative journalism and/or writing for television, and her interests include breakfast food, comedy, and napping.

by Edmund Schofield

Editor’s Note: As a rule, we don’t publish work by older, established writers, but we make an exception with this piece by the late Edmund Schofield since it tells the story of an English teacher who had the rare ability both to instruct and inspire. Anna Shaugnessy mentored young writers who went on to great success–Stanley Kunitz, MIlton Meltzer, Charles Olson, and Nicholas Gage. Every young writer should be lucky enough to come across an Anna Shaughnessy.

We learned about this piece through Joan Gage, who featured it in her blog, A Rolling Crone. We are grateful to be able to publish this edited version of the essay in the Journal.

There is a further twist to the tale. Schofield’s original essay described three writers mentored by Miss Shaugnessy, and only at the last minute did he discover that Nicholas Gage, Joan’s husband and an accomplished author whose books include “Eleni,” which was made into a successful movie of the same name, and “A Place For Us,” had also been a student of hers. Gage’s thoughts on his old high school teacher are in a postscript to the essay.

Dedication to Anna C. Shaugnessy from the Classical High School yearbook of 1966.

Edward Tyrrel Channing taught writing at Harvard for 31 years during the early 19th century. Among his students were such renowned authors-to-be as Emerson, Thoreau, Richard Henry Dana, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell. Quite a haul for one professor!

Yet if Harvard had its Edward Channing, Classical High School in Worcester, Massachusetts, had its Anna C. Shaughnessy. And if Channing had his Emerson, Thoreau, Dana, Higginson, Holmes, and Lowell to brag about, Anna Shaughnessy could boast that she had fledged her very own brood of aspiring writers.

She was born in Cherry Valley in 1896 and died in 1985 at Clark Manor Nursing Home in Worcester—the two places scarcely two and a half miles apart. A devout Catholic, she received many honors from her Church, including the Pro Deo et Juventute Award (“for God and Youth”) from the Diocese of Worcester.

Her father, Michael, was born in Ireland and worked as superintendent of a woolen mill in Cherry Valley. Her mother, Anne (Daly), was born in Pittsfield. The family of twelve moved into Worcester early in the twentieth century.

Anna graduated from South High School in 1913 and from Radcliffe College, Class of 1917, magna cum laude. In 1955 she received a Master’s degree in Education from Clark University. During her second year at Radcliffe she was one of only fourteen sophomores in the top tier of honor students. According to the BostonGlobe, a Radcliffe honors student had to have “Very high academic distinction and concurrent testimony in her favor from a sufficient number of instructors.” In 1916, while at Radcliffe, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

After Radcliffe, she taught for a year in Newton and then, for two years, in Millbury. In January 1921 she came to Classical, where she taught English until her retirement in 1966, which was also the year Classical High School closed. For several years she also was head of the English Department of the City’s schools.

In the words of one Classical graduate, she “was an inspirational teacher.” Indeed, less than five years after her arrival, the Class of 1925 would dedicate its yearbook to “Anna C. Shaughnessy, a brilliant scholar, a thorough teacher, and a true and sympathetic friend.” The accompanying photograph shows a young woman of serious mien with haunting, brooding, almost sad eyes.

Anna Shaughnessy labored for the City of Worcester for decades. And yet who (beyond co-workers, close friends, and family—and the many young people whose lives she must have touched) has ever heard of her? Granted, she once did receive a key to the City for her work with young people, which served as her only public recognition. She has been swallowed up in undeserved oblivion.

It is high time Worcester further recognized this dedicated, “inspiring” teacher, for through her long teaching career she would bring honor and credit to the city, not only directly, through her labors with young people, but also indirectly, through the triumphs of her students—at least three of whom rose to become well known writers. And who could possibly calculate her citywide influence during her years as head of the City schools’ English Department?

Stanley Kunitz was a self-starter if ever there was one. He seems to have chosen the vocation of poet from the start, which does not seem to have been the case with Charles Olson. In his Junior year at Classical, Kunitz was assistant editor of the new student literary magazine, The Argus, and held that post until his Senior year, when he became editor-in-chief. He was a prolific writer for The Argus and a top scholar. Kunitz graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1926 and went on to earn a Master’s there as well.

Kunitz would serve two terms as Consultant on Poetry to the Library of Congress—in effect, as Poet Laureate—and one term as actual Poet Laureate of the United States, after that post had been created. According to the critic Robert Campbell, Kunitz became “perhaps the most distinguished living American poet.”

Charles Olson was an outstanding student in all subjects. In his senior year Olson placed third in a national oratorical contest, winning a ten-week tour of Europe. From Classical he went first to Wesleyan University and then, after receiving a Master’s degree there, to Harvard, though he did not finish.

Unlike Kunitz, it took Olson some time to settle on his métier. Not especially interested in poetry during his high school years, once he did settle on it he excelled and is today considered one of the twentieth century’s most important American poets.

THE BOARD OF ARGUS, CLASSICAL HIGH SCHOOL’S LITERARY MAGAZINE, 1927-1928. OLSON IS CENTER BACK/CHARLES OLSON RESEARCH COLLECTION, SERIES: PHOTOGRAPHS, BOX 322, ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AT THE THOMAS J. DODD RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT LIBRARIES. USED WITH PERMISSION

In 1969 Olson wrote to Anna Shaughnessy, by then retired from teaching. “My dear Anna S,” he began, continuing somewhat incoherently, “You shldn’t at all be surprised I’ve carried you as close to my heart as the first days I ever sat in your class.”

Milton Meltzer entered Classical in 1928, graduating in 1932. He died in New York City in 2009. A prolific writer, he wrote more than 100 books on such subjects as Jewish, African–American, and American history, primarily for young people.

milton meltzer

Few of the teachers at Classical were interested in ideas, he felt, but simply wanted students to memorize facts, dates, and names. One notable exception was Anna C. Shaughnessy. In his charming little reminiscence of Worcester, Starting from Home, Meltzer notes that it was she who introduced him to Thoreau, one of his favorite authors: he would later write a biography of Thoreau, edit a collection of Thoreau’s political essays, and collaborate on another book about Thoreau.

Years later, during a difficult period in Meltzer’s life, he turned to Thoreau’s Walden. for comfort, coming across this passage:

Every one has heard the story . . . of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table . . , hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, . . . may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society’s most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its summer life at last!’

Upon reading these lines, Meltzer wrote, he began to sob. “The image of a bug emerging into life after all those years in its wooden tomb, touched something deep in me. The tears poured out in relief. Feelings that had been frozen so long, melted in a rush. My wife, who had come running at the sound of crying, looked at me in amazement, then put her arms around me. I felt like one reborn. . . .”

And so it was that Anna Camilla Shaughnessy, a brilliant Irish–Catholic girl from little Cherry Valley, Massachusetts, would help these fledgling writers soar.

***

Postscript: Nicholas Gage on Anna Shaughnessy

NICHOLAS GAGE/PHOTO BY MARI SEDER

Miss Shaughnessy was a superb teacher who gave life and feeling to every piece of writing she taught her students. As I recall, she rarely showed any emotion in dealing with those students, but when she encountered ones with an ability to write, she would spend extra time with them to show them how to make an image in a poem more vivid, a character in a short story more alive, an essay more illuminating. She pushed me to try writing poetry for the only time in my life, and led me to reading classical Greek authors like Plutarch and Thucydides, who became models for me in my writing later.

She would invite the most promising students to join the staff of the school journal, the Argus, which she supervised, and she would use the extra time that afforded her with the students to help them further develop their writing skills. In 1957 she appointed me co-editor of the Argus along with Karen Cotzin—an assignment that would create a foundation for a 40-year journalistic career that included the Worcester Evening Gazette, the Associated Press, the Boston Herald Traveler, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Miss Shaughnessy was a woman of considerable reserve but students never seemed to mind it because they knew if she praised your work, it was for the work itself, and that gave you the confidence to believe in your own abilities and to strive to improve them. She knew not only how to teach but also how to mentor.

by Jason Boulay

Crisp November air descends upon the sleepy valley in northeastern Afghanistan. Enormous snowcapped mountains frame the unforgiving landscape.

“Sgt. Foley, wake up,” I mutter, aching with exhaustion.

The author with a group of Afghani children/photo by jason Boulay

After another sleepless day of running offensive raids on Taliban strongholds south of Kabul, our three-man military police team is, once again, working the midnight shift. Tonight we are securing checkpoint 1-Alpha, the first line of defense for the United States airfield located adjacent to the small Afghan village.

***

The tall plywood watchtower does little to protect us from the biting conditions outside. Small openings at both ends of the oblong room provide some visibility, but also allow piercing winds to pass through unobstructed. The tower overlooks the dangerously straight dirt road leading onto the base, dangerous because the absence of bends means that a car rigged with explosives could speed toward base.

***

My knees crack. I stand up from my failed attempt to wake the team leader. I scan the harsh and barren terrain. An unsettling stillness rises from the wasteland of brittle, sun-hardened clay. Countless white rocks, arranged in small stacks, decorate the landscape, each rock placed with cautious respect by villagers to mark the locations of active landmines. I pan left, across the vacant road, and towards the earthen ruins that were once an adobe home, a quiet reminder of the Soviet aggression experienced by the Afghan people the last time a foreign nation entered their land two decades ago.

***

My watch reads 2 a.m., only four hours into our tedious twelve-hour shift. It’s my turn to sleep. After working all day and through the night, I am aggravated and exhausted.

I kick Foley’s rack. “Paul, get the fuck up!”

Behind me, the rickety door slams shut with a loud clatter, causing me to jump. It’s our gunner, Specialist Barrett, returning from the latrine. He is a twenty-three year old, second-generation Irish Protestant from South Boston. Barrett stands 5’ 6’’, with a barrel-chest and stocky frame.

He lets out a guttural laugh, “Scared yah, Boulay?”

Although it’s dark, I can see the reddish hue of his neatly cropped hair as he removes his helmet.

Foley stands up and stretches.

“Whose turn to sleep?” he asks, barely managing to get the words out in-between yawns.

“Me,” I reply, irritated.

Barrett positions himself behind the machine gun; its matte black barrel extends out from the tower window, trained on the blackness that consumes the long desolate road. I look toward Foley; his thin, angular frame is reduced to a mere silhouette in the strategically dark tower. The 25-year-old sergeant proudly hails from a lineage of Irish Catholics who fled Ireland to escape discrimination in the mid-nineteenth century. Back in civilian life, Foley is a police officer in Quincy, Massachusetts, as was his father before him. Foley’s subdued nature often acts as a counterweight to Barrett’s boisterous manner.

Foley asks for a briefing on the past hour. Just as I start to speak, Barrett interrupts.

“We’ve got something out heah, guys,” the sound of alarm detectable through his thick Boston accent.

“What is it, Barrett?” Foley asks.

Barrett pivots his machine gun to the right, pointing the barrel diagonally across the road, “Right theah, ya see it?”

In the outermost limits of the darkness, a pale, flickering light sways and dips, appearing to dance impulsively in the cold Afghan night. Foley radios headquarters to see if we have any patrols in that area.

A response comes back quickly, “Negative, not tonight, over.”

***

Foley and I quickly inspect our assault rifles and 9mm handguns. Barrett drags two metal cases of extra machine-gun ammo across the splintered floor to his sandbag fortified position. We’re prepared for a firefight. All too often, the enemy creates a diversion to direct our attention away from the primary threat. Just last night we exchanged gunfire with Taliban fighters who started a brush fire in an attempt to lure us out of the tower and into the kill-zone. Dozens of bullet holes scar the pitted walls. Each one stands as a fresh reminder of our vulnerability and the enemy’s resolve.

Foley levels his M-16 Rifle out of the opening on the western side of the wooden structure. I cover the east. Barrett continues to keep our most powerful weapon trained on the unknown source of our concern. And we wait.

&n
bsp; ***

Minutes pass, disguised as hours. Tick! Tick! Tick! Last night’s ambush plays on continuous loop in my mind; the sudden rush of nearly paralyzing adrenalin, the loud rhythmic cracks of automatic gunfire, the sound of incoming bullets piercing the thin walls, and the all too familiar feeling of hot brass shell-casings bouncing off my wind-chapped skin. As I bow my head to pray, the sulfuric stench of gunpowder in the fibers of my uniform causes my eyes to water. My heart races, sweat builds up under my collar, and an uncontrollable anxiety flushes through my system.

***

The dim light slowly gets brighter. The night air is eerily silent. The sound of our rapid breathing only adds to the mounting tension.

“The light looks like it’s standing still,” Barrett informs us.

***

Slowly, out of the night, the vague outlines of people emerge, the flame of a kerosene lantern shimmering upon them.

I finally break the uncomfortable silence.

“That has to be more than twenty hoodgies.”

“Yup!” responds Barrett.

Foley pulls his weapon out of position, turns, and, breaking from his usually calm manner, barks out, “Barrett, keep it locked on them, and if anything seems off, light ’em up! Boulay, you’re with me!”

Foley and I quietly slip through the door at the back of the tower. As we near the bottom of the staircase, I nudge the sleeping Afghan interpreter. Startled, he opens his eyes and gasps, before jumping to his feet. I press a single gloved finger against my lips, telling him to keep quiet. Foley goes around the east side of the tower. I take the interpreter around the west.

As we round the tower, my anxiety mixes with adrenaline. Getting control over the lethal mixture that is pumping through my veins can be the difference between life and death for everyone involved. I take a deep breath and try to force myself to relax. Carrying anxiety into an already volatile situation makes it impossible to focus. Moments like this demand absolute concentration.

***

Briefly gazing up at the front of the tower, I see the distinct outline of the machine gun’s black metal barrel, standing in stark contrast against the pale yellow glow of the crescent moon. As Foley and I walk away from the giant structure, I feel Barrett watching over us, machine gun ready. My anxiety and fear subside. I can’t help but take comfort in the gun’s ominous presence.

***

My finger resting softly upon the trigger, I raise my rifle toward the potential target, flipping from safety to fire. With the push of a button, Foley activates the giant floodlights. A brilliant blast of radiant light illuminates the street. Tiny translucent scorpions and large black camel spiders scurry off the road. The hoodgies extend their hands in an attempt to block the intrusive light from assaulting their eyes. The sound of shuffling feet stops.

***

Foley instructs the group of villagers to send two people forward as representatives. From amidst the group, a man and woman emerge. The man has a long, thick, coal black beard with argent streaks irregularly spaced throughout. He is wearing the traditional daily Afghan garb, a loosely fitting perahan tunban. The woman, standing a half step behind him, is shrouded in a dark blue burka decorated with elaborate shell stitching. A thick-screened area conceals her eyes. She clings to an object covered by a dingy pink blanket. My finger tightens on the trigger.

Through the interpreter, the man speaks.

“Our baby is dying! Please help us.”

Without speaking a word, Foley takes five steps toward them—reaching out, he pulls the corner of the blanket back. A tiny gray arm falls lifelessly to the side. I lower my rifle.

***

A baby girl, only a few months old, clings to life. Her grayish blue skin appears shrink-wrapped to her skeletal frame. Each shallow, labored breath a struggle against the gurgling and crackling in her lungs. We motion for the man and woman to follow us into the tower.

***

Once inside, Foley calls for help over the radio. I take the baby from her mother’s arms and place her on the foldout cot. Pulling the fleece blanket back, I recognize faded images of Minnie Mouse on the inside. My niece had the same blanket when she was little. I begin CPR. Cupping my hands over the baby’s tiny nose, I begin breathing for the child, trying to keep her alive long enough for the medics to arrive. The heartbreaking sound of her mother crying hysterically adds urgency and purpose to every movement.

The sound of a Humvee becomes audible, followed by slamming doors and boots ascending the wooden staircase. Platoon Sgt. Bowe and Lt. Young enter the small tower.

“What’s the status?” Bowe asks.

I slowly back away from the child, “I think–” I take a deep breath, then continue, “–I think she’s gone.” The child’s previously shallow breathing has completely stopped without my assistance.

“We need to bring her to the hospital. We need to at least try!” demands Foley.

Lt. Young replies, “We do not have the clearance to bring unauthorized locals on base at this time.”

***

The interpreter speaks to the parents. Without protest, the father reaches down and in one seamless motion wraps the cold, limp, body of his daughter in the blanket, lifting her off the cot. With the lifeless body in their arms, they quietly leave, continuing on to their waiting tribe.

Just as the group had come, they leave, but now without the hope that the Americans can help. The six of us silently stand and watch them walk out of the glow of the floodlights. Bowe and Young leave. The interpreter goes down the stairs and back to sleep.

***

Foley breaks the silence “I’ll write the report in the morning. Boulay, you can lay down for a bit.”

I silently lie down on the cot, my head now resting where an innocent life ended only moments earlier. I close my eyes. This place is Hell on Earth! How much worse can it get, I think to myself, having no idea I would soon have an answer to that very question. I slowly fall asleep to the unnerving silence of the Afghan night and the occasional yawn of a teammate standing guard.

Jason Boulay is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan from 2002-2003 as a military police officer, attached to the 82nd Airborne Division. He is a senior at Bryant University, in Smithfield, Rhode Island, RI, double majoring in political science and communication, and minoring in management.

by Hayley Masters

The clock ticked down and the final buzzer sounded. The Tufts University Men’s Lacrosse team, the Jumbos, had once again defeated the Salisbury University Sea Gulls to win the NCAA Division III championship. The team ran the traditional victory lap, led by 3-foot-10-inch 7-year-old Jacob Beranger, joyous at having been named MVT–most valuable teammate.

“On our victory lap, one of the guys had him on his shoulder carrying him around,” said midfielder Charlie Rubin. “I remember looking up and seeing this huge smile on his face. It was definitely an image I’ll never forget.”

As the media, the fans, and families swarmed the field, the players gathered around the trophy for the victory photo. Jacob sat front and center, decked out head to toe in Jumbos apparel and with his championship hat on backwards, just like his teammates. His smile lit up the stadium.

For one afternoon, Jacob got the chance to be a regular 7-year-old kid. His high-risk neuroblastoma was forgotten as he shared the glory of being the best Division III team in the country.

“He just gives me a constant reminder of how lucky I am,” Rubin said. “I just think about the big picture, and knowing what he’s been through keeps me humbled and grounded.”

Charlie Rubin and Jacob Beranger/Photo by Dan Leventhal

Jacob is one of 575 children who have been matched with an NCAA team through the work of Team Impact. Each child is welcomed to the team on Draft Day, a day designated to formally introduce the children and families to the team and coaching staff. Impact works to improve the quality of life for children facing life-threatening and chronic illnesses through the power of teamwork.

“Our motto is: ‘Matches make a Difference’,” said Maura Mahoney, director of programs at Team Impact.

Mahoney is proud of the longevity of the relationships. “They don’t just end after a season, they last a lifetime,” she said.

Team Impact, based in Quincy, Massachusetts, began in 2011. Since then, the organization has matched 575 children, partnered with 270 Colleges and Universities, and expanded into 42 states.

“Our goal is to reach every institute, every team in the NCAA,” said Mahoney.

Steve Rushin, journalist, sportswriter, and novelist, recently wrote a story in Sports Illustrated magazine about Team Impact matching six-year-old Dante Chiappetta with Yale University’s football team.

“Team Impact is such fantastic program. I know Dante’s family loved their experience, it brought so much joy to their lives,” said Rushin.

Rushin has written countless stories over the years, but this was “a family and a story I’ll never forget.”

The Assumption College varsity football team in Worcester, Massachusetts, was matched with 7-year-old Yan Perez, a rambunctious football enthusiast. Yan had been diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer, but according to the brawny defensive back, Erik Abramson, his positive energy is always present.

Erik Abramson with Yan Perez/Photo by Michael Abramson

“He goes through stuff that we can’t even comprehend, but somehow he finds a reason to smile,” said Abramson.

Abramson noted that Yan isn’t just a big deal on the field, but is well known around the entire school. “He’s a celebrity around campus,” Abramson said laughing. “We call him the king of the campus.”

Head Coach Bob Chesney has noticed a shift of attitude and disposition in his players since Perez was drafted by the Greyhounds in 2011.

“it’s sounds crazy,’ he said, “but I think he’s had a bigger impact on us than we’ve had on him.”

Families are also affected. “It has changed my life,” said Yansen Perez, Yan’s mother. “Yan has become part of their family. And those boys have become part of mine.”

Hayley Masters hails from Horseshoe Valley, Ontario, Canada, and studies Journalism with minors in Global Social Entrepreneurship and Photography, at Northeastern University, in Boston, Massachusetts. She also plays on the women’s ice hockey team. Her passions include traveling, photography, writing, and the outdoors.

While in line at the post office a few months ago, I witnessed a man eavesdropping on a Latina chatting with a female companion.

“Speak English,” he said. “You’re not in Mexico.”

The woman, seemingly ashamed, looked at her friend, lowered her voice and head, and continued to speak.

She wasn’t speaking to him.

She wasn’t even speaking Spanish.

I came to the United States of America, my adoptive motherland, when I was in 4th grade. At ten years old, I effortlessly spoke, wrote, read, and sang in Spanish. Soon after enrolling in the Worcester (Massachusetts) Public School system I was placed in ESL classes. I was extremely excited at the prospect of learning English and all that it entailed. I did my best to learn the language. I read English books at home and watched Full House, Punky Brewster, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the belief that the more English TV I watched and the more English literature I read, the sooner I would learn English. A year and a half later, I was transitioned into English-only classes. There, I was constantly reminded of my accent and the importance of getting rid of it. I was placed in speech classes in order to work on my pronunciation. I worked hard to try to domesticate my unruly tongue.

My inability to master English pronunciation led me to the conclusion that there was something wrong with me. I am now an adult and continue to have an accent—a prominent and untamable one at that. While I proudly remain fluent in Spanish, I now also manipulate the English language with pride. I think in both languages. I find that I am able to better rationalize watching and listening to the news in English but favor reading the newspaper in Spanish. I write better in English yet speak better in Spanish. As a consequence, much of my cognitive exchanges are spent filtering words from English to Spanish or vice versa.

I have met many people, who, like the younger me, feel the need to suppress their Spanish language and accents. They battle with their use of what linguists call code-switching (as well as language, code-switching also involves switching between gestures, social interaction, and culture). You are probably familiar with code-switching as Spanglish. The Spanish-speakers attempting to juggle two languages understand that in order to fit in they need to, like many before them, assimilate to the new language. Many of them walk around feeling the way I did as a child, that there is something wrong with them, a wrongness that is obvious the moment they open their mouths to speak.

By the end of this century, the Latino community will comprise the biggest minority group in the United States. By that time, since the use of Spanish is seldom encouraged, English, and not Spanish will be the mother tongue of most Latinos. This notion creates a problem for Latinos who are caught between two cultures and deal with the complexities of living between two languages on a daily basis.

Language plays a fundamental role in a person’s sense of self. Culture, which includes language, forms our beliefs and shapes our perception of reality. Culture allows people to understand their surroundings and communicate; as with language, culture helps the community transmit the philosophies dear to them.

Code-switching is an aptitude, yet it is profoundly discriminated against, most often by those who speak only one language. The Latino use of code-switching in the United States is a cultural performance deeply frowned upon. For the Latina writer, though, the use of code-switching is a necessity, a tool through which she is able to achieve autonomy. In literature, code-switching is recognized as a literary technique that allows for the alternation between two or more languages in the same text. It can be found in all forms of literature, and it is the natural result of the constant growth in the Hispanic population from the early nineteenth century through to today.

Although it can be argued that the use of code-switching in written text is a political statement against the monolithic use of English—this may be what the man in the line at the post office was worried about—it can also be argued that those who code-switch do it because it is part of their identity, a marker. Code-switching is a representation of the reality of those who live in a liminal state, not only between vernaculars, but also between cultures.

According to Lev Vygotsky, a psychologist who pioneered research into cognitive development, “Language … is the tool of culture which enables social interaction, and thus the direction of behavior and attitudes.” Since culture plays an essential role in the cognitive development of a person, the language in which an individual communicates should not to be regarded as an insignificant.

Code-switching is shows the ambiguities of one who stands in an uncomfortable territory, a place of contradictions, illegitimacy, and manipulation. Code-switching is a language born out of boundaries. It is a mode of communication indispensable to achieving self-efficacy and subsequently self-expression.

Identity and belonging are crucial to the development of human beings. People who have a strong sense of their identity understand and accept where they come from–their cultural history, language, religion, and the environment that helped shape them. People achieve a sense of belonging when their culture is accepted rather than questioned, suppressed or judged.

Code-switching, in this sense, is more than a personal choice. It defines a person and allows him or her to achieve completeness. The failure to fully understand the immigrant experience, the reasons that drive people to leave their countries of birth and journey to the United States, their drives, beliefs, and what shapes them, is what keeps many from understanding that people who code-switch do not do so as a simple rejection of the English language or to keep monolinguals out, but rather because code-switching is the language that the newer generations have come to know as natural.

Orfa Torres Fermin is a Worcester resident and Clark University English and business student. She enjoys researching and writing about women and gender studies, cultural theory, and social and cultural marginalization. She is a self-confessed coffee aficionado, do-it-yourself(er), and photographer. Orfa believes in equality and hopes to live by her pen.

by Nick Porcella

Nothing said tough like a candy cigarette. Now known as a candy stick—more politically correct and cognizant of concerned parents—this chalky treat with a highlighted red tip fit nicely between two fingers. Puff and take a drag. Read the packet: Sugar. Corn syrup. Corn starch. Tapioca. Gelatin. Artificial flavors.

Photo by nick porcella

Sold in faux cigarette boxes with faux cigarette company names like Kings, and Victory, and Lucky. There should be a Surgeon General’s warning: Candy Cigarettes Don’t Cause Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, or Complicate Pregnancy, But They May Put You on the Road to Diabetes.

My mother loved these as a child. She would drag from them to scare her mother. Little Annie puffing like a chain smoker. Chain candy addiction. Candy cigs.

Some years later, at the pier near a never-ending carnival, my father watched her smoke and chew the candy cigs, smoke and chew. Playing old-timey games of pinball and skeeball, only cheating occasionally. But only badasses cheat at skeeball, only badasses pilfer the ivory-esque balls to place them through high score slots. And only badasses smoke and chew candy cigarettes at the pier near a never-ending carnival.

I didn’t get it. Middle-aged mom mentioned to me the allure of la cigarette de bonbons. The feeling of breaking a rule but not really doing so. Putting that faux box (thinner cardboard than the real things) under a shirtsleeve to feel cool, legitimized.

photo by nick porcella

But these candy cigs weren’t for me. They tasted like NECCO Wafers without the color. Disgusting. White sticks with a dollop of faux fire at the end. Tasted like teacher’s chalk licked off the chalkboard, born from writing the phrase I WILL NEVER SMOKE CIGARETTES over and over and over as a punishment for being caught taking a puff out behind the schoolyard with Big Ralph and the other junior varsity hotshots.

Candy cigs? They ain’t sweet enough. Take a piece of chalk, grind it, smash it, mortar-and-pestle it, then add a single granule of sugar. Compress it back together and voilà. Harder to find. Disappearing. A representation of the times, choking like cigarettes—real ones, the faux candy cigs—which create smoke-filled lungs. Certainly not better than tapioca’d tongues.

Nick Porcella studies English at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, and intends to teach high school. His interests include Herman Melville, rap music, photography, and writing. He is completing a memoir, “Getting to Say Goodbye.” See more of his work here.

Sarah Leidhold, an overzealous student at Worcester State University, harbors a pervasive addiction to both producing and absorbing poetry. She especially enjoys the uninhibited spilling out of inspired sentiments in the all-accepting form of free verse. More of her work can be found here.

This self-portrait by Irvi Stefo, an 11th grader at Bancroft School in Worcester, Massachusetts, won him the Gold Medal in last month’s national l Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Stefo describes the illustration as demonstrating “the dominant role of social media” today. “This particular piece creates a link between the thirst for attention and a reflection of individuality,: he writes. “Diving into a prismatic wonderland of pop culture and surrealism is like finding serenity in a madhouse.”